Kelly Wiley
Kelly graduated with a BA in Child Development from Chico State. She has worked with young children in licensed programs since 1983.
She owned and operated Golden Gate Music Together in San Francisco 2001-2016.
She created Golden Gate Children’s Art & Outdoor Explorations in the Fall of 2013. Her vision was and still is, to offer a Reggio Inspired Enrichment Program that allowed children to tinker and explore a wide range of materials and express themselves with many different mediums. To document their process and reflect back their ideas by asking questions. To provide a art & outdoor space that was the third teacher because it inspired creativity. To build strong relationships with and between children. To foster their development and to encourage joy.
Kelly was first exposed to Reggio Emilia in 1995 when working at the PG & E Children's Center in San Francisco. It was one of the first centers in the city to start implementing Reggio Emilia inspired classrooms. Funding from the center allowed for her to take part in local and nationwide trainings and roundtable Reggio Meetings. She has remained an active member of NAEYC and attends NAREA Conferences throughout the year. Kelly has attended Reggio Emilia,Italy trainings since the Fall of 2019.
Kelly attends workshops in Reggio Emilia, Italy every Spring in April and in November. She often brings Teachers with her to attend these workshops.
This Spring 2026 she will attend workshops hosted by NAREA in Pistoia, Italy in April & Reggio Emilia, Italy in May.
Amy Bergstein
Amy is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. Her work focuses on creating inclusive, experiential learning spaces where youth can explore creativity, self-expression, and connection to the natural world.
Her teaching practice is deeply informed by her time living in India where she worked at an international Farm school leading nature-based, multidisciplinary art programs for children while collaborating with local artists to support creative learning across language and cultural contexts.
In the Bay Area, she facilitates public programs at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, while continuing to center youth voice, collaboration, and holistic learning. Amy attended School of Visual Arts in New York, majoring in filmmaking, and is a certified expressive arts practitioner and yoga teacher.
Kelcey Christen
Kelcey Christen is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist living in San Francisco. She graduated from the University of California Berkeley, Art Practice in 2025 and since then has taught ceramics, drawing and sculpture at the Berkeley Art Studio and other bay area independent art studios. Through a range of recording devices, her work dances between drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and sound. She looks at how controlled repetitive processes can both contain order and disorder, allowing freedom and expression to all artists. Her work focuses on collecting and foraging natural and recycled materials and processing them into beautiful working art materials. She is interested in the slowness involved in craft and art and the lessons we can learn from our unity with nature. She enjoys biking, sports, and music in her free time, and loves dogs.
Ximena Vilela
Ximena Vilela is a mixed media artist whose love for art began in early childhood. She holds a degree in fashion design and has spent years exploring a vibrant range of creative mediums, including sewing, textiles, sculpture, and acrylic on wood. She finds joy in experimenting, working with her hands, and bringing ideas to life through texture and color.
Based in the Bay Area, Ximena has worked in several art studios and Reggio inspired preschools, where she blends creativity, curiosity, and play into every experience. In addition to her artistic work, she also supports administrative operations, bringing organization and care to behind the scenes processes. Her work celebrates imagination, tactile exploration, and the beauty of artistic discovery.
Zizi Hayes
Zizi grew up in San Francisco and Oakland and later attended UC Santa Cruz and graduated with a BA in psychology. Zizi was very inspired by the nature that surrounds that area, which now heavily influences their art, as well as a lot of their interests. Zizi has experience working with children in different art and play based spaces and previously worked at a Reggio Emilia inspired school. They appreciate the way that the Reggio approach centers art, play, exploration, a deep connection to nature, and emphasizes the importance of children’s autonomy.
Zizi believes that access to art and nature are incredibly important for a child’s social emotional development and enjoys being a part of that experience. Zizi loves plants, crafting and experimenting with different art forms, cooking, hiking, singing, playing guitar, reading, and spending time with their cats and loved ones.
Attended Teacher Training in Reggio Emilia, Italy in April 2025.
Kylie Pyne
Kylie Pyne was raised in a small town in Idaho, developing an early deep appreciation for the outdoors and hiking, with Jackson Hole Wyoming only being an hour drive away from her childhood home. Kylie’s love towards working with children started early on, with her first job being teaching guitar and piano lessons to local family friends’ children. She later attended CalArts in Los Angeles, studying music composition, with a focus on Song writing and Cello. After her time at CalArts, she decided to take a different educational path and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Idaho in 2022.
Being heavily inspired by her love for travel, reading, and the outdoors, Kylie embraces Reggio Emilia with an essence of adventure and vigor that helps foster and encourage children in their practice and play while in the studio. Her passions include sewing and up cycling clothing, painting, writing music, and anything outside!